#125 The 411 on Communication
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host joined by my blue collar. Badass Matt. How's it going? My friend. You know what, man, normally I would give you some canned response. I know things are good. Things are great, or I'd make some, some dumb comment about the weather.
[00:00:20] the weather sucks here by the way. It's freezing. But things have been pretty darn stressful last couple of weeks. So we're in a, a maintaining mode these days. How about yourself? So that brings up a really interesting point. Uh I've I've trained myself or tried to at least address it. For everything moving forward is when people ask you how it's going, right.
[00:00:47] It's always, you know, living in paradise or, living the dream, man. Yeah. It's good to get an whatever, right. Some can thing. And I've really tried to just say what's going on. So I have, I do a lot of calls. Outside walking with my dogs, I just do. And that's what I tell people. They're like, how's it going?
[00:01:07] I'm like, well, it's a little crisp this morning. As I'm out here with my dogs, like going for a walk, like, and they just, it's an expectation set upfront in the call. Like I'm outside, it's a little Chris, you might hear some road noise or cars, or my dogs barking at a squirrel, but it's a very like honest thing, right?
[00:01:24] This is what I'm doing. Same with like a lot of other stuff. It's how's it going? Well, So there hasn't been the best or it's busy. I've got a lot of meetings going on, but Hey, I'm here, let's do this. And it's to be very, just intentional on that, like instead of a canned response on whatever, just to be.
[00:01:44] Frank in a way, but also to just set the stage a little better than, sometimes we're used to. Absolutely. I love it because there's people who will get annoyed by that, that honesty. Right. And they get, they get scared by it, like, wow, that guy's being kind of a jerk, you know what, but the reality is it is honest and okay.
[00:02:09] Every day is not. Peaches and ice cream and rainbows and unicorns. It's just not some days suck. Some days are great, but just be honest with it, rip the bandaid off and now let's get to business. Yeah. It's like, I'm here, you know, how's it going? Right. Well, it's, wasn't great. It's getting better. We're doing what we can moving forward.
[00:02:31] Right? Like it's what it is equally worse though, is the guy that always says the Holy negative response. Like. Oh, I'm living or, you know, just making do it's like, well, w what's going on buddy? Tell me you got five minutes here of, of rapport building chitchat. Let's let's get it out in the open. Yeah.
[00:02:57] And that's, I mean, it's just one of those things that once you. It's an awareness, right? Once you do recognize and realize that that's what you're doing, and you have some canned thing that you've been taught your entire life, and it's just a, it's a two sentence or two word answer. No, you're grunting and response.
[00:03:17] When you actually like develop that into like two sentences now it's like, Oh, that's cool. Like that's interesting. Or tell me, like, why is that, you know, a bad day?
[00:03:33] Yeah. I mean, w we are all interesting. Interesting. We have different stories to tell, you know, why not tell him once in a while? And again, it's like a, it's a five minute thing, right? It's not, or three minute deal, but for you to say, like, whatever it is, right. Hey, I'm out walking with my dogs, right? It's a little Christus and going out, walk in, or, Hey, it's a beautiful day.
[00:03:56] It's sunny and 75. Couldn't ask for a better day, right? Again, it's a, that's a ten second clip, but it opens up a little bit of a dialogue, right? Like, Oh, that's cool. Right? They're curious. Yeah. Hey, what kind of dogs do you have? I have dogs. What are your dogs like? Blah, blah, blah. And it just, it just keeps us all connected a little bit better.
[00:04:18] I have a, a supplier, who I really like. I've worked with this guy for. How, I don't know, 10 years, 15 years, every single time I ask him how he's doing. And I, you know, let me backtrack. That's the kind of the flip side of it too. I'll say that a lot of times saying know, Hey, how you doing? And really in my head, like, I'm already past that.
[00:04:39] I'm past the answer onto the business at hand, but that's, that's the other side, but ask those guys how he's doing every single time for 10 years, he says, Oh, I'm living the dream. Just living the dream man. Except for now since March of 2020, he's added to it. It's, I'm living the COVID dream. So it's, it's actually quite comical now and I'll pin them down and I'll be like, so John explained to me the COVID dream, what does that really mean?
[00:05:05] And it gets real quiet and then we just get to business.
[00:05:11] Okay. Yeah. I mean, again, those canned responses, like, cause if, cause you're going to get that one guy that asks you, right. So you better have a like real answer for it. Definitely better have a real answer. Otherwise everyone looks foolish and then it's just awkward in silence. And
[00:05:32] it's all good though. There was another one. Yeah. I mean, in that it kind of leads into, you know, again, we've been talking about core values and I do want to talk about you on this, you know, and want to touch on this right off the bat, you know, off of our conversation with Todd last week. And just again, guys, you can't emphasize this enough.
[00:05:54] You need the repetition, you need to know what your core values are and. You hire your fire, you do everything based around core values and you exude and try to live to your core values as much as possible. and again, we want to just touch on this again. you know, Matt, you've had some experiences in the last week around, core values and, maybe you want to expand upon, your, your experiences with core values, you know, both good and bad.
[00:06:27] Yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know, it all goes back to company culture and personal culture, and it's not always beautiful. You know, there there's some, some gritty and realistic aspects of running a business that, you know, you come across from time to time and if you can't stay true to your values, to your culture, then you stay true to, to nothing.
[00:06:53] Right. So, you know, we, we, we focus very much on our core values. We preach about them. We've got them on our, our walls and all of our offices. We put them on our proposals. Now talk about them constantly. and we hire and fire based upon those. So we historically are very slow to hire. mainly because I don't like making mistakes.
[00:07:18] I want to make sure that I'm bringing someone into the inner circle, that they're going to be a good fit. But on the flip side, we were very quick to fire and I mean that respectfully so that you could screw up seemingly anything in the company, and we'll fail fast together and we'll learn from it and we'll move on.
[00:07:41] But there's five core tenants, core values of our business. That if you, if you mess with those, it's a really easy quantitative yes. Or no decision for my business partner. And I. And the problem, what I've found is, is the interviewing process, right? So we're both in RNA. We focus a lot on talks on, on hiring and, and questions to ask and, and trying to focus on core values.
[00:08:11] It's really, really hard in this, in the course of an interview, you know, an hour or two hours, whatever it may be to, to effectively judge who a person is and what they really stand for. Even if you have a couple of interviews or a few interviews, you know, you don't, you don't know someone until you know them.
[00:08:30] And we ask all the right questions, you know, we've, we've custom tailor. A lot of the questions we ask during interviews to, to kinda kind of grab that. You know, what does this person's what, what are their values? How do they respond to these questions? And we make assumptions, right? Problem with assumptions is sometimes you're just a wrong and you might not really get to know someone until a month in or two months in or 12 months in.
[00:08:57] And it's, it's part of life. It's it's part of business, but that was kind of what happened to us last week. So we, we had a employee who. For all intents and purposes has done a great job with us. they had a really bright future with us and some choices were made, some things were said, and the long story short, that employee is no longer with us.
[00:09:25] And it's, it's a real bummer. So to put it lightly, I mean, it's devastating, frankly, to the company, to, to, to me personally, this is a guy that I hired directly. But at the end of the day, you know, decisions were made last week, which is part of the reason that we didn't record last week, but decisions were made that, that, you know, it was that yes or no question.
[00:09:52] And, and it becomes real easy. If you can look at your values, are we have five of them that we, we preach. If you can look at five of these values and say, okay, no, no, no, wait a minute. There's something wrong here. All of a sudden you cut it loose and. That's what we did. It was, it was a little uglier than, than normal.
[00:10:12] but we, we cut an employee loose and we got rid of a, a disease. I think that was festering, you know, behind the covers that we, we just had been too, either we're too busy or too stressed or, or a combination of everything to, to really see it. You know, we, we focus so much on the end result, especially in, in construction, you know, we're always running, we got to get the damn building built.
[00:10:35] Turn over the keys and then you take a week or so, and you breathe and you turn around and start the whole process all over again. And it doesn't leave a whole lot of time as, as leaders to really look inside your organization at what's going on. And I think that's kinda what happened to us.
[00:10:56] There's so much to unpack within that. the first things that I think I want to touch on is. really assumptions. So within any conversation within any interaction you're bringing in your own unconscious bias on whatever, right. And how you see the world, the how your past experiences, right? You could have had a ton of great interactions with a lot of people, but one person.
[00:11:24] Did one thing that soured all future interactions when it comes to a given deal, right? It could be a contractor, a vendor, anything you name it, right? spouse relationships, people, you know, have to have some jaded or very Rose colored glasses in, in any given situation. So, and. Assumptions are some of the hardest things to see for yourself.
[00:11:52] Somebody has to point out what your underlying assumptions are or what your, what lens you're looking at the world through. And it becomes a very, it's hard to see your own assumptions because you've even grain them so much into who you are that, uncover those is it's very difficult on your own. You need somebody that has a good, that knows you, but also can like see through that and what your assumptions are going into situations.
[00:12:22] I know that's like a very broad, big statement, but at the same time, like it in some reading, a new book right now. And one of the things that, they talk about is just how little we think. So how, how little we think about anything. We do, right? You might have a lot of thoughts going on in your mind, or like you're bringing in this conversation, but to actually sit in like silence and think through a given problem, doesn't happen, you know, like with a pen and paper asking and answering questions, right?
[00:12:59] That's the process of thinking is asking and answering questions and nobody actually does that. So. More that you can do that in your business and everything we'll see and help you to, without anybody else. Right. If you don't have anybody or don't trust anybody which reanalyze that assumption or basis, but, to go through and ask and answer questions so that you can uncover what some of your base assumptions might be in a given situations.
[00:13:30] So that's, that's probably number one is talking about assumptions. Yeah. And it's, I agree with you, you need to find somebody, you can talk to that that knows you well enough to call you on your bullshit, right. That when you're, when you're living on assumptions and they're wrong, and other people can see them, they gotta be willing to, to, to rip that bandaid off and tell you.
[00:13:55] And that's a hard thing for some people to do, but it's very necessary. I mean, I. We've talked about it. I think on the show before I've got a psychology degree, right? Not your typical construction guy. I tend to think because of partly that degree, that I'm, I'm usually a very good judge of character and I can allow that to kind of cloud my, my normal judgment and make some, you know, some poor decisions because of it.
[00:14:26] And that's just it. Right? You have to have one, you have to be willing to see it to you then have to be willing to change. Right. You have to be willing to deal with that, whatever it is, right. That comes out of somebody telling you that, Hey, this is the assumption you're making right or wrong. and then to be able to change, which also goes into, as you go through this, people will and like the, yeah.
[00:14:53] Experience that you had is people will tell you who they are. Right. They're going to tell you and people, because, and I talked about this on bridging the gap, like it is physically painful for you to rewire your brain. Right. It is physically painful for you to, to change because like so many ingrained neurons and neural pathways are there, that it, you actually rewire your brain when you do things differently.
[00:15:21] So to make that change is just, it's physically hard. So, but, so again, people will tell you who they are. You just have to be willing to listen, willing, to like see that for what it is and not come into it with Rose colored glasses. Yeah. You have to be able to see it. And that's, that's a big thing because they may not tell you who they are with, with words or with a direct answer that, Hey, I'm, I'm this, this and this.
[00:15:51] But if you spend enough time with the individual, they will absolutely tell you who they are through their actions, through their mannerisms. Through their body language, you know, through their, their emotions, that all of the, the woo woo stuff that people don't like to talk about, but it's, it's really important stuff to be looking at and to focus on.
[00:16:11] And you're, you're totally right about the pain of change. And I think that goes on a neurological level that, you know, like you started off earlier saying, we, we don't. As humans as, as our brains, don't like to think a whole lot, right? We, we live life just based on this repeating loop. And unless we get really negative feedback on that loop, we're going to seek and do the things that we know how to do and the ways that we know how to act.
[00:16:39] And I mean, there's, there's books and books and books written on this and, and lots of people who know far more about it and can speak more eloquently about it than I can, but it's really. Interesting stuff to start learning and looking at interesting topics, but it's also incredibly powerful. Once you take the time to start kind of picking those pieces apart, but there's a lot going on and that we never know about and that we don't pay attention to it just cause it's easier not to.
[00:17:10] Yeah. So one of the examples is, so your brain is constantly scanning for things to like, be aware of, right. For change in the environment for things to right. fight or flight. That's what your conscious mind is constantly scanning for. So in that you have like 40 to 60 neurons that fire every second in your conscious mind.
[00:17:33] But there's a lot, a lot of things that are automatic. Right. And how you think, how you feel, how you move about the world that are like ingrained in you from a young age and your unconscious mind is doing most of the heavy lifting, right? So when you have 40 to 50 neurons that fire in your conscious mind, it's 40 to 50 million.
[00:17:54] Times are 40 to 50 million neurons per second, firing in your unconscious mind. So again, like the, the amount of things that are ingrained innate that are hardwired into you, that you have like no control over is all done unconsciously, right? How you think, how you move through your mannerisms, everything pretty much about you is a unconscious thing.
[00:18:18] So it becomes very hard to change. You can, but it does take conscious directed effort. To make those changes in who you are, which all goes back to core values, that if people do not exude your core values, it's a very hard thing to change and they're, they're not going to fit within your organization. So you need to move them out.
[00:18:37] They'll find a place that they fit, that they're good. You know, their intent is aligned with whatever or a company that just doesn't care about core values and they're going to be fine and have a career there. They don't care. Yeah. And, and that's. You know about our now ex employee, you know, we, I personally hope it really works out for him because he's a good guy.
[00:19:01] and it's not like he did something like, like murdered, another employee or anything, you know, horrid. but he just. He just didn't fit with those values. And it would have been a disservice to him as much as it would be to us too, to keep him on board in that capacity. So sometimes it hurts, but you just need to make that clean cut and, and let the wound heal and move on.
[00:19:25] And everybody's better for it. Yeah. And again, an organization, a company is. It needs to be a symbiotic organism, right? Everybody needs to work and mesh and move in the same direction together. And if you can't do that, then it crumbles. So you need to know, or you need to have that core value alignment, and that allows everything else to move in the same direction.
[00:19:55] Positive momentum forward. Cause otherwise it just creates a clash in a cancer throughout the organization. Yeah. And not to belabor it, but we're, we're a small company, right. We're really small now. but there are no dark corners for someone to hide it, you know, and some of the larger construction companies or larger any companies, you could probably squeak by with just doing what you do, staying under the radar.
[00:20:23] but. Not in our organization, everybody's on a spotlight a hundred percent of the time, all day, every day. And that's, that's the reality of what we're dealing with here. If you don't, you don't mess, you don't mesh and it'll get called out sooner or later. Yeah. And I mean, it's goes into building a team.
[00:20:44] This is company culture, core values. I mean, that's all basically wrapped up in the same thing and then. hiring and firing right on bat or shooting clients. Right. That's all core values related. and even, you know, one of the other things that we can go into is, conflicts, right? When you have conflicts on site or vendors, anything like that, you can still rely heavily on, on core values and coming back to, you know, Hey, Understood.
[00:21:17] So one, you need to understand how you communicate to people and really to express that more. So, Hey, this is why we're doing this. These are all the reasons behind why we need this thing delivered today or tomorrow or whatever. so we can move forward and having those conversations to, again, not just say I need to hear or good.
[00:21:42] It's. This is why we need this. These are, you know, the big reasons behind it because often in construction, there's a, you need, it's a need to know basis where, you know, as the engineer, right, I've become a part of a lot of conversations with the owner and why they need stuff that always, that doesn't always get relayed to, to site.
[00:22:08] For whatever reason. So in that, if I'm talking to like the electrical foreman superintendent, it's like, Hey, you know, these are the reasons why we're doing the things we need to for future stubs it's, or these are the connections that we need to make for this phasing to get this thing up and running because.
[00:22:29] Like in a hospital setting, we need that or running ASAP so they can start billing for it. Right. They can start having patients and they can start making money on the project. It becomes a Oh, okay. Right. It's a light bulb moment if you will, but they didn't have all the backstory of, Hey, this is why we're doing this.
[00:22:48] This is what needs to happen. And we needed this executed by when.
[00:22:56] And I think it goes. Even deeper on that a little bit too, because there's a lot of instances like that where decisions need to be made and, and deliverables need to be delivered finished ASAP, right. With a very definitive date for lots of reasons, whether it's financial or otherwise, but there's also a lot in construction.
[00:23:18] That is, is very much so based on the long game, right. There's a lot. a lot of seed planting to grow forest, so to speak and having the perseverance and the follow-through to stick with things sometimes is also pretty difficult, for an organization or for an individual. we're working right now on, on a project.
[00:23:45] It will be probably the largest project. we've, we've built. Today, really when it comes around, it's a project that I've been working in. The pre-con in this thing for I've lost track. It's, it's literally in the seven to 10 year, year Mark, seven years. So if you take me, I'm an anomaly and I'm still working on it, but we've, we've gone through two or three different bleed engineers now on the civil side.
[00:24:16] Well, now we have a guy who. Kind of got stuck with it for lack of better terms. he doesn't know all the backstory, he doesn't know all the assumptions and all the, all the, everything that, that came into the last six and a half to seven years to build this thing. And so he's kind of, he's kind of dropping the ball in my eyes cause he just doesn't have that same motivation and to be able to express and create the same motivation you have in someone else.
[00:24:48] Is incredibly hard to do, but it's incredibly powerful if you can figure it out because it, it, you know, everything we're talking about is all kind of culture related. But if you can, if you can express motivation, if you can express values, if you can find a way to, to quantify and, and convey difficult topics or, complicated aspects of a project.
[00:25:14] It starts becoming more second nature, but you know, that, that long game side of it, it's a tough one for some people to grasp onto
[00:25:25] through, through most of this it's and we always lose track of what the end result we want. Ends up being right. We lose the sight of, Hey, at the end of the day, whatever it is, right. Whether it's a project and this thing is going to change how the community operates. This is going to give housing to 500 people.
[00:25:48] This is going to be, you know, the school for all of our kids for the next 50 years. Whatever that thing is, we don't always. And I know we, I mean, we just don't, we don't iterate that enough. Hey, this is again, what we're here for today is say, talk about, we're going to talk about a lot of detailed stuff, but at the end of the day, this is a project to provide healthcare for.
[00:26:13] However many people for the next 10 years to we made this thing again, right. Or you know that we're here to talk about a school or community center. That's going to provide, you know, place for our kids to play basketball. Mine included for the next, you know, however many years and that starting a conversation like that.
[00:26:32] And Hey, this is again, why we're here. See if this fits to see if this is going to help you and save you. Time in my case for Cowabunga, but like a lot of this comes back to again, why are we here? And then we can talk through all the details, but at the end of the day, this is the thing you want, right?
[00:26:49] Whether it's a saving time, whether it's a building or it's do more operations, right. Whatever it is, if we can come back to why then. It becomes a lot easier right now that civil engineer has a little more motivation to be like, Oh yeah, no, okay. This is, this is what we're doing it for. And it's just, we've been in it so long that we remember why, but it's again to, to everybody.
[00:27:17] And even in your company, right? Hey guys, we build buildings. We give new spaces to people, and this is everybody in the industry, right? This is at the end of the day, we're providing for this project. It. You know, just so happens to be community centers, school, or a hospital or an office or an apartment, but at the end of the day, it's, Hey, we build great things that stand for decades.
[00:27:41] It, yeah, it's, it's just fitting in answering the why's and filling in the why's and then conveying them to people. And, and you, you nailed it. this guy doesn't have the same motivation. He doesn't have the backstory and to me, I just run so fast sometimes that I'm like, well, of course he knows what it is.
[00:27:58] I, I know what it is. I've known it is for seven years, but realistically he was kind of thrown into it and he shouldn't probably have, he absolutely shouldn't have the same backstory on it that I do. So keeping that communication open is huge. And I think keeping that, building that communication and that, that transfer of ideas will also help.
[00:28:21] Lower the collective stress levels in a project or, or in any, any sort of endeavor? Yeah. I mean, like I'm working on one right now. It's a hotel project and I'm probably the fourth guy to be a part of it, you know? And it's, we're taking a old, old building that hasn't been probably had anything done with it, like 12 story hotel, and there was like an apartment building.
[00:28:47] Now it's going to be a hotel. And, but somebody took the time to explain to me, like one, you're not the first guy on this too. You know, you need to just look through everything that's in here because who knows. And then three, like, Hey, this is the project. This is where it is. This is, you know, we took 15 minutes to explain it.
[00:29:07] Some of it's like, okay, I, you know, I get it. Sure. But it's having that context that maybe in the moment seems a little boring, a little out of it. But you never know where it's going to come back to play. That is like, Oh yeah, that I, I understand this thing that they're trying to do for that. So I need to like, so we got to move a vault right in the sidewalk.
[00:29:31] Cause it's right on. It's in Louisville, Kentucky, and it's, we gotta move a big utility ball and it's like, okay, how does this play in for it so that we can have wheelchair access to the building? And so that the sidewalk is smooth. And can we just fill this in? It's like, okay. Yes, you need to do that, but there's gotta be a little phasing here to get through.
[00:29:52] But again, because somebody took the time that 10 minutes to explain this piece, then in a meeting, I could say, Hey, you know, we need to coordinate this with utility. Note this on the drawings to incorporate phasing here, to end up capping, you know, manhole. Yeah, part of it's an you have to learn the art of storytelling, right?
[00:30:18] You have to be able to convey these things to people in a manner that they can understand it. And not everyone can understand the, the same, the same way. Right? So with an engineering background like yourself, you learn and you listen and you hear things probably very different than, than I do. but. To be on the same team.
[00:30:39] We gotta be able to, to tell that story so that everyone globally can get it and can hear it. And the team can keep moving forward 100%. And the, so here's the hack for storytelling it's it's problem, you know, what's the problem here? What are you trying to do? Right. So like for your community center, Hey, we want a place for kids to play basketball.
[00:31:08] Okay. Right. We don't have any place indoors to do that, you know, for season facility. Okay, problem. Right story. Well, we went through this, this, and this right to overcome whatever to create this. Fantastic facility. And there's, you know, there's more fluff in there, but ultimately it's problem story solution, right?
[00:31:29] At the end of the day, we're going to create a facility so that we can play basketball and sports or whatever volleyball year round in this facility. Same as the school. Right? Hey, our. Our facilities are old and outdated. And, you know, we probably got led in the walls. So we went through and raised a bunch of money.
[00:31:48] We feel that now is the right time to provide a 21st century education to our students and update all of our infrastructure and internet and all the things that we have to do in this day and age. So we went and raised a bunch of money. And now, you know, in 18 months we're going to have a brand new school.
[00:32:03] Right. But it's problem story solution because you. Pull people in with a problem, tell them a story. And then you resolve it with whatever the ending is. It's how every single movie is written. but it's problem story solution. And those are the three big elements, in storytelling. And you could even do problem, cause story solution.
[00:32:25] But those are, those are like the big elements that for anything that you do, if you start with that and you start with like the why the problem, you know, why we're here, which is typically a problem. Then you move into how this happened and then what you're going to do about it. Those are the simplest elements to any given story that anybody can tell and do it in a very condensed manner.
[00:32:51] I like that. And I think it goes back to your earlier point about sometimes you just need to take the time and be silent and think things through, you know, sit down with a pen and a pad and, and write down the lies and, and. Create or, or, or come up with what the story is and that's so right. again, thinking is asking and answering questions.
[00:33:14] So what is your story? Right? What is the condensed story that you want to tell when somebody says, well, what do you do? Right? You start with a problem, tell a story and give a solution. It's becomes a very, it's a very simple formula, but it takes, it does take some time to go through that, to go through that exercise.
[00:33:43] But it's important regardless of the time it takes, you know, it's, it's crucially important to, to be able to capture vision and convey your message. Absolutely. And this is it's so one of the examples I'm going to give a non-construction example, but, It's so, let's say you have an at-home chef, right.
[00:34:06] Or somebody that, that does has their business as a at-home chef that's, comes into your place and as a chef. So if you're at a dinner party and you ask somebody, Hey, what do you do? Well, I'm a, I'm an at home.
[00:34:23] Cool. You know? Right. It's the whole, it goes back to good, right? It goes one word answer, right? I'm a at-home chef. If you switch that and say, have you ever wanted a professionally done meal in the comfort of your home? Well, I'm an at home chef. We come in and provide delicious meals for you in the convenience and comfort of your own home.
[00:34:51] Right. You start with the problem. It's a two sentence thing. It's, it's a 22nd spiel instead of a. Two second grunt and then it, but then it opens it up to a bigger conference. It's an elevator pitch. Exactly. So in construction, that could be, you know, I'm a general contractor. Somebody could have no idea what that is, right?
[00:35:20] Yeah. I mean, how many things have you gone to and said that? And I mean, I've say like I'm an electrical engineer. Well, what does that mean? Right. Nobody, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Especially when you specialize in things, you know? Cause it's just as easy. I'll say, you know, I'm a builder. So the first thing people think is, Oh, this guy is building houses or decks and garages.
[00:35:46] If I don't elaborate, if I don't convey my message and give them my 22nd elevator pitch and tell them, you know, they, they have no reason to know. And you sit there and, you know, crickets of awkward silence for a minute and then, you know, order your food or whatever is the next thing. Yeah. So the reverse, and I've been on a ton of these, right?
[00:36:06] Where you intro yourself and it's, it becomes weird because you're going to be the only person that do this. Right? So everyone's in a two second thing and you're going to take a little longer, which is, you know, can be perceived as annoying, but at the end of the day, people are more clear. They have clarity on what you say.
[00:36:21] So if you. And this is for everybody out there. Right? Figure out what your niche is. But if you flip it to be like, we build commercial facilities for, you know, apartments or whatever, whatever your specialty is. And this is the other thing. Most commercial construction engineering firms are a Jack of all trades, but it's, or, you know, you do 18.
[00:36:44] Well, you got one, we'll take it. We, you know, we don't we'll do it, whatever shit you give us some work we'll. We'll engineer it or buildings, right? Yeah. Sure. but if you can specialize, right. So, one of the firms that I worked for specialized in, primarily K-12, but, educational facilities. Right?
[00:37:10] So. We are a premier provider of educational facilities throughout the Midwest. If you are looking to build a school anywhere, you know, in the Midwest where your people, right. Or have you been looking to upgrade your educational facilities? You know, Blank company. We're a premier provider of educational facilities in the Midwest, right.
[00:37:37] Or locationally in Michigan, in California, in Texas, whatever that is. But then it's a clear, concise pitch to say, Hey, this is what we do. So it's like, you know, for Schafer could be, Hey we're or have you been looking to build recreational facilities in your County shaver construction? We provide.
[00:38:01] Premiere services for recreational facilities in Michigan, right? That's a pitch for Cowabunga studios for us. It's, you know, architecture and engineering firms have struggled with being productive, profitable, and with their cashflow at Cowabunga studios, we automate electrical design to improve your financial bottom line.
[00:38:31] It's all communication, man. I mean, th this, this episode kinda has gone to a lot of different ends of the spectrum on topics, but, you know, communication is huge and how you represent yourself, how you present yourself. It all boils down. I think, to, to what your background is and what your values are right.
[00:38:52] To, to keep going back to that and trying to, to succeed as a group. To, to reduce levels of stress and the, get your message across so that you can all, so you can sell your software product or so you can build the next building or you can, whatever you want to do, whatever you need to do to succeed as a team or as a unit.
[00:39:13] You know, these things, all tie together in this, this kind of swirling pool, if you will, that it's, it's tough to figure out sometimes for sure. And we make stupid mistakes. A lot of times in, you know, stress comes in real big and. If you, especially, if you don't understand what's going on, you know, maybe, maybe the message wasn't conveyed to you clear enough, you didn't, you didn't know who you were hired.
[00:39:36] You didn't know what, what company you were going to work for. You didn't know what project you were taking on or, or, you know, all of those kind of meat and potatoes of, of our existence. It can really lead to some mental, mental turmoil,
[00:39:53] 100% man. And. And construction, I mean, hacking auto industries, but especially construction. I've seen it time and time again is you just, you run from one deadline from one project to the next you're, you're worried about a lot of things that are more than likely out of your control, you know, on getting information and making timely decisions that you just don't have the right information.
[00:40:17] And I mean, you just can't let it go. You're you're worried about something that you have no control over. And if we can let some of those things go, which again, I it's easier said than done, but in that you can get a lot of comfort, but also to take 10 minutes, five minutes. And I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but to take five, 10 minutes in your car, even before you go into the office and to be quiet, right.
[00:40:47] Just, to sit there, close your eyes and just. B and it's some of the hardest things you could do, but in that you will feel much better. Just remove yourself from the situation for a minute and try and see it differently. And I can tell you, a story about me personally, this happened yesterday. So obviously the last week, week and a half has been incredibly stressful where we're, there's a lot going on now because of some things that happened that we've already talked about.
[00:41:20] I personally, don't always tend to just take that step back. I'm running constantly. I'm trying to steer the ship. I'm trying to do everything. So yesterday was about the apex of it. I was literally like head spinning, stressed out. I was accomplishing nothing, nothing was getting done. The stuff I was doing was wrong, or it just, it wasn't effective.
[00:41:44] And. I went as far as to get in my truck, I left my office. I had a walkthrough for a new prospect, got in my truck, drove an hour on a day that I'm literally scheduled. So tightly. I there's no room to breathe. It feels like. So I drive an hour all the way across town. I get to the location, pull in and it's a couple of trucks in the parking lot.
[00:42:08] I'm thinking, huh? This is interesting. you know, I, I tend to get places early. I like I'd rather be early than late every time. So I figure I'll just hang out for a minute. People will show up. Well, no, one's showing up. So I get out of my truck and I walk into the building. It's an addition and renovation project.
[00:42:24] And as I'm walking in, I pull out my paperwork and I look at it on again. And the damn walkthrough is for Thursday, tomorrow. So. I literally took anyone it's all said and done about two and a half hours out of my already crazy stupid day and just threw it out the window and spent two hours in my truck.
[00:42:46] Just pissed off at the world now, but had I just stopped and just taking that minute to just shut everything off, back up a minute and breathe and, and really see what's what's going on. I probably would have saved a lot of gas, a lot of headache and, and, and a lot of extra stress that I didn't need. So, you can talk about it all day long.
[00:43:12] And we do, we talk about all these great ways, but, but even as someone who talks about it and who preaches all these coping mechanisms and ways to still succeed, it still happens to me. I still spent, you know, two and a half hours yesterday for no good reason other than the fact that. I was so stressed out that I didn't actually pay attention to the smallest of details or the biggest of details and that, that occasion and that's, and I mean, dude, thank you for sharing.
[00:43:42] Like those things are, they're not uncommon, right? They're not uncommon across the industry. And so many people dealing with. Yeah. I mean, heck I got shingles, right? Like from stress, like this is, it is a common occurrence across the industry to be so burnout that, you know, often it manifests and health conditions and bad things.
[00:44:08] Right. But it can be these little things too, right. Just time wasted for not, not looking at it or to possibly obsess over something that you have no control over, right. On a, on a deadline, even on a thing that you're not getting the right information to make a decision. Well, until that comes, like, there's nothing you can do, right.
[00:44:32] It's obsessing about what ifs. And, you know, I used to be that guy, like I had obsessed like, Oh, if this happened, well, we need to do this. Isn't this that happens. We need to do this, this and this. If, if this thing with no probability of happening ever occurs, well, we need to do this, this and this. You just, you freak out about like, well, I, you know, at the end of the day, like make a decision when it happens, you know, and.
[00:45:03] Do you need to put some plans, some thought before that happens, but most of the time you can make, you can get the information, take a step back and then make an informed decision later. You're not making a call in the room. Rarely does that happen? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there there's, there's a time and place for quick, quick decisions, you know, but.
[00:45:30] For the most part, especially when it's, when it's project related or workflow related, you've got time, you know, you always have more time than you think you have. That's that's for definite actually, the first time I went deer hunting, that was the, the piece of advice. The guy that took me, gave me.
[00:45:48] And he said, you just, just remember, no matter what you think is going on, you'll always have a little bit more time than you think you do. And it holds true in a lot of, a lot of facets of life. I think.
[00:46:04] For sure, man. you know, we've, we've covered a big gamut today. We've talked, you know, culture, core values, and really like, you know, comes into your clients and building a team and conflicts, even somewhat in old versus kinda young construction and, some cultural differences. we're kind of coming up on a, I think a good point for, for this episode, but any, any closing words or any thoughts you want to add to this, you know, big topic of, of communication.
[00:46:36] yeah, and it's, it's, it's related to kind of the stories that I told today, but it's a, it's a quote from Abraham Lincoln. I read recently in a book, and the quote is that most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be. And to me, that kind of hits the nail right on the head. By dealing with stress about culture, about community, about everything we've talked about today.
[00:46:59] So that one kinda struck a chord when I read it the other day.
[00:47:07] Yeah. I mean, which goes, so, Henry Ford Atawan that says, if you think you're right or you think you're wrong you're right, right. Or if you think you can, or if you think you can't you're right. Yup. Which I mean, it all goes, it all goes back to, and that's, this is going to be my wrap up is guys, you need to spend some time thinking through things, right?
[00:47:35] Asking and answering questions, being silent, trying to remove the stresses, the trigger points and what you're doing and trying to think through. Can you actually make a decision, right? Do you have enough information to make a decision on whatever it is? Right. Design construction. Workflows, whatever. Can you make a decision on it?
[00:47:56] And if you can't ask for the information and then wait, right. There's nothing you can do and just be okay with that. Be okay with not moving because probably not moving is going to be a better decision than doing something and having to rework it right. Going back to making assumptions, guessing all those types of things that it doesn't help anybody.
[00:48:20] Do anything. So take the step back, take some time, get out a pen and a piece of paper and write your thoughts down in silence. Put the phone away and ask and answer good questions. And that'll get you further than just about anything else we've talked about. Great advice, Dylan. Great advice, man. I will, we'll see you next week.
[00:48:45] All right guys. That's this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time. Yeah.